Gordon Brown and the Gurkhas
During the Second World War, the husband of one of my father’s employees, had been fighting the Germans in the Western Desert. One of his duties at one time, was to liaise with the Gurkhas and he had many tales of their bravery, which I heard in the 1950s.
So I have a lot of respect for those from other countries, like Fijians and Zimbabweans who have taken the King’s or Queen’s shilling.
I don’t know who put the thought in my mind, but I’ve generally felt that to recruit soldiers from abroad has been one way to get the costs down.
So when the campaign started to give former Gurkha soldiers the right to settle here, I was generally in favour, although I had a few reservations about how it would be implemented fairly. Gordon Brown had no choice but to give in to the demands, as this report from the Guardian shows.
I don’t blame him for doing it, but he didn’t fund the consequences of his decision. He was very weak and didn’t think things through properly. In other words, he showed his true colours and probably hastened the end of his tenure at Number 10.
So now we have reports from Aldershot, about hardship and resentment from the local inhabitants. It led to a very heated debate on Radio 5 this morning.
All of this could have been avoided by Gordon Brown calculating what the cost of his actions would be. But then we all know to our cost that arithmetic wasn’t his strong suit.
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